Why go
A visit focused only on Radcliffe Square misses the city that grew around Morris Motors and later manufacturing. The contrast between central Oxford and Cowley, with its different street life and working history, makes the city’s modern development easier to understand.
The full story
The First World War emptied many college rooms as students and staff enlisted. University buildings, including the Examination Schools, and civic buildings such as the Town Hall served wartime needs, among them care for wounded soldiers. In the following decades Oxford’s population and industry expanded. Publishing was well established, and William Morris developed mass car production at Cowley on the city’s south-eastern side. The 1929 boundary extension brought Cowley, Headington, Iffley and Wolvercote into the city. Oxford thus grew as both university town and industrial city. During the Second World War its colleges were again used for military training and accommodation, while refugees and rationing affected ordinary life. Cowley later experienced major job losses as British car manufacturing changed, yet car production remained part of the area’s identity. This history gives purpose to a journey east from the college core: the change in streets and buildings reflects Oxford’s twentieth-century work and migration. At Iffley Road, Roger Bannister’s 1954 mile is another distinct moment in the city’s modern story.